Switch in GDScript

Our first program will demonstrate the usage of switch statements, which express conditionals across many branches.

Basic switch Statement#

Here’s a basic switch example in GDScript:

extends Node

func _ready():
    var i = 2
    print("Write ", i, " as ")
    match i:
        1:
            print("one")
        2:
            print("two")
        3:
            print("three")

Multiple Expressions in case and default case#

You can use commas to separate multiple expressions in the same case statement. We use the optional default case in this example as well.

extends Node

func _ready():
    match OS.get_date().weekday:
        6, 7:
            print("It's the weekend")
        _:
            print("It's a weekday")

switch Without an Expression#

match without an expression is an alternate way to express if/else logic. Here we also show how the case expressions can be non-constants.

extends Node

func _ready():
    var t = OS.get_time()
    match true:
        t.hour < 12:
            print("It's before noon")
        _:
            print("It's after noon")

Type switch#

A type match compares types instead of values. You can use this to discover the type of a value. In this example, the variable t will have the type corresponding to its clause.

extends Node

func _ready():
    func what_am_i(i):
        match i:
            true:
                print("I'm a bool")
            1:
                print("I'm an int")
            _:
                print("Don't know type %s" % typeof(i))

    what_am_i(true)
    what_am_i(1)
    what_am_i("hey")

Running the Code#

To run the program, put the code in a GDScript file, attach it to a Node, and run the scene.

$ godot -s my_script.gd

Outputs:

Write 2 as two
It's a weekday
It's after noon
I'm a bool
I'm an int
Don't know type string

In this example, we’ve learned how to use switch (or match in GDScript) to handle multiple conditional branches efficiently.